A German health insurer reported this week that one in four children in the country suffers from mental illness, with most of them hospitalized for more than a month.
(File photo: AFP)
The study of child and adolescent mental health issues was based on data gathered from 800,000 children insured by the German health insurance company DAK in 2016 and 2017.
The study, based on "fears and depressions among schoolchildren," quoted an evaluation by the University of Bielefeld, which says the number of hospital admissions due to depression increased by five percent during this period.
After hospitalization, children often do not receive appropriate outpatient care. As a result, about one in four of them are hospitalized multiple times within two years, it said.
The data also shows that chronic diseases significantly increase the risk of depression.
Due to hospitalization time, the children missed an average of 39 days of school and family life.
"The stigmatization associated with a long stay in adolescent psychiatry is an additional burden for those affected. We need an open discussion about the taboo subject of depression in children," said Andreas Storm, CEO of DAK.
There are apparent gaps in care after hospitalization, which need to be addressed urgently, he added, saying that the hospitalization rate of 24 is alarming.
The data showed that 24 percent of children have psychological anomalies. It indicated that 2.2 percent of children between the ages of 10 and 17 are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and a little under two percent with depression.
DAK extrapolated the data onto the country's total population of 10- to 17-year-olds, which brought the total number of children suffering from these conditions to 238,000.
The rate of child depression was up by five percent in 2017 from the year before, the report said.
Children who suffer from back pain, headache, stomachache, or pelvic pain have a 2 to 2.5 times higher risk of depression, it added.
The family environment can also be a factor, with children of mentally ill parents significantly more at risk of developing a depressive disorder, the study said, adding that the children of addicted parents are more frequently affected than their peers from addiction-free homes.
Germany's Professional Association of Pediatricians and Adolescent Physicians (BVKJ) lauded the report as valuable.
"The findings on early mental health problems, supported for the first time by health insurance data, are precious. In the report, however, we see only the tip of the iceberg. We assume a high number of unreported cases," said BVKJ President Dr. Thomas Fischbach.
The World Health Organization (WHO) considers depression and anxiety disorders among the most severe conditions in the group of mental illnesses.